No one is arguing the effectiveness of big bore sharps rifles.


I was more mentioning common black powder cartridges loaded in both rifles and pistols, muskets and muzzleloader rifles with round balls and heavy concial balls, low poundage bows Indians had, Etc.


No one can spin a topic more off course than the THF



Let’s discuss what BDC reticles the lipan apache would have preferred or whether or not Billy Dixon would have killed that Indian at twice the distance had he had a tikka in 6.5 creedmoor...

What are you talking about? Addressed your question directly on point with a simple photo.

Sorry it was not the answer you were looking for.

Here is your original post. Nothing about Indians with bows and arrows.



The photo is in the time period asked about. The rifles back then had all the power and accuracy needed to kill efficiently and the hunters obviously knew how to use them. A deer is far easier to kill than a bison.

The casualty counts from the Civil War remain the deadliest in the history of this nation with over 600,000 killed, many with "conical balls" as you ask. The men were highly practiced and those that survived the war had good marksmanship skills with knowledge of making shots at significant distances - or quite close. Rifles only improved after the Civil War and there were many chamberings and manufacturers other than the big bores typically used for bison. btw - scopes with "knobs for twirling" and even iron sights to correct for distance and wind were in use back then, so that is not a recent invention.

As others have pointed out, deer, elk, and other game animals were extirpated by hunting from many areas prior to the turn of the century in 1900. The major decline in game animals led to the passage of laws to regulate hunting.

I'd be willing to bet a $100 that if we picked 100 men at random off the street in 1870 compared to 100 off the street at random today, the oldtimers would handily outshoot the current crop of men.

"I'd be willing to bet a $100 that if we picked 100 men at random off the street in 1870 compared to 100 off the street at random today, the oldtimers would handily outshoot the current crop of men."

Id say that in the 1870's you could pick 100 random woman off the ranches and they would out shoot us today. My mother who was born on a ranch in west Texas near Midland was the best shot I have seen in my life. It wasn't a "sport" to them, it was life and death in putting food on the table.

CWD

Very good point.

Back then cartridges were relatively expensive-you made them count. Lot more 'hunting' back then than now.

I agree with the not as many as you would think. Looking back on the old timers I knew with as a kid, some of whom started hunting in the first 20-30 years of smokeless powder, they wouldn't shoot unless it was a very much sure thing. Most of their shots were probably at what today's considered bow range and at least in our area they mostly hunted with dogs.

Hence not a lot of target practice was done.

Depends on the year. Most populations where gone or almost by 1900.

Agricultural has really propped up populations even with massive loses in habitat.

More deer in Texas now then people in 1900. Texas has had a substantial harvest of 1 mil deer a year I think for almost 20 years.

I wish we knew exact numbers of animals back then.

I would say success per shot was probably better back then because there where no laws dedicated to “fairness”. No restrictions

I think there are more whitetail deer now in the U.S than when Columbus landed.


Don't forget about screw worms, etc. that were here as well that took a toll on populations.


From my understanding there were a lot of areas that didn't have deer, and not from over hunting, the type of terrain and habitat just didn't support deer.

Yelp that why it’s so hard to say. We have almost more hunters now then there we had people in 1850.

But in same time market hunters where needed to support human populations. And those guys had zero rules. Highly effective and efficient

Two different times, the men in the past were trained from a young age on how to shoot. Get the same qualified men of both eras and then shooting the weapons of their era and you wouldn't get the same result.

There was one man with a rifle that easily killed 51 buffalo in King county about 8 years ago. Apparently he did that easily in an afternoon with one rifle, imagine what one man today could do with the herd sizes of that era with the weapons of today.

But how many hunters today actually practice a lot. A lot of guys now will wear out a barrel in a year or two, but for the vast majority a box of shells will last 3 or 4 seasons. Overall more people shot more often back in the day, maybe not at targets but many of them hunted year round.

Some guys do the same thing. Not every hunter is a 3 weekends/one buck one doe hunter.

I shot my rifle 10 times last year 7 of them were at animals 3 were to Check zero for a put of state hunt

Just take the numbers here when archery season starts and multiply.

And when an animal was wounded they would keep after it until it was dead or gone! They wouldn’t just give up and go drink a beer, they knew they either found it or didn’t eat! I’m guessing the number was a lot lower than what it is today!

It’s an interesting question.

My speculation would be that, volume-wise, there were a lot more misses and wounded animals back in olden times. No doubt the woodsmanship skills and familiarity with their weapons were superior, but two big factors offset these:

1)Volume of game and therefore, shots taken and
2)Vastly inferior weapons/ammo from both an accuracy and lethality standpoint.

The writings all the way from the Lewis and Clark Expedition journals, the mountain men, all the way up through those of Teddy Roosevelt and even Jack O’Connor are replete with accounts of missed and/or wounded game. It was simply an accepted fact of hunting. Game volumes and no/liberal bag limits meant opportunities were plentiful. Plus, almost everyone hunted - so even from simply a numbers perspective that meant a lot of missed/wounded game.

The market bison hunters were an exception. Bison were notoriously plentiful, not wary, and a herd could basically be shot out from one (or very few) positions. In addition, the market hunters for bison were deadly shots and became even moreso through the volume of shooting they did.

Today’s modern rifles, bullets, and optics are much more accurate, user-friendly and lethal. IMO this offsets a lot of the overall lack of skill and woodsmanship most of us have compared to the old-timers.

But that’s admittedly speculation/opinion.

Now how do you know that?

The famous brady buck(state record non typical) was wounded and found days later by another guy. The way I remember it is he went to the bar after and started telling folks about a giant deer he shot and wounded.

So that blows that theory

I think you have mixed several points. The stacked bison skulls is impressive, no doubt, but it doesn't attest to efficiently per se. It doesn't tell us how many animals were poorly shot and ran off or how many were simply gut shot and collected later. All the pic tells us is that a lot died as a result of the hunters, but nothing about overall efficiency.

The same goes for deer and elk being extirpated. You get a bunch of muttonheads shooting willy nilly and you can do a lot of damage to a local game population. It doesn't mean that they were good shooters or that they collected the game that they killed. It just means animals died.

Civil War deaths. Yep, over 600,000 killed. Was this due to the great shooting of the skilled gun toters of the time? Nope. Over 2/3 were killed by non-combat maladies such as disease, accidents, drowning, heat stroke, suicide, murder, execution. http://www.historynet.com/civil-war-casualties Most of the disease-related deaths were due to poor sanitary conditions and living in close proximity. Dysentery was a major killer. Then you had communicable diseases that killed as many as 40% of those who contracted it.

So for the 200K or so that were killed as a result of combat, a huge number of them didn't die from great shooting by the opposition, but because of getting wounded and dying from the infection that set in afterwards or as a result of receiving medical treatment. Being shot in the foot or arm could just as much result in death as being shot in the head. Such wounds today would often be considered minor by comparison and easily treatable, non-lethal wounds.

Never mind those that were killed directly and indirectly by bayonets, cannonfire, etc.

So the notion that because so many people died in the Civil War was because the shooters of the time were such good shots is really not supported. Surviving the Civil War didn't mean you were highly practiced and/or highly skilled as much as it just meant you were awfully darned lucky.

so explain the hog problem.

Hogs are smarter, much more prolific, more elusive, more adaptable, and don’t stand still as a group while you shoot their buddies.

Just got done reading an article about a champion black powder shooter. He would shoot a pound of powder every range trip.

Hunters of the era couldn’t afford to shoot this much. Black powder cartridges were also valuable, not just in cost but also availability. Recreational shooting was only for the affluent . Not long ago you could buy 30-30 cartridges by the singles.

I think they were better woodsman but better shooters? I would argue that point.

I would be willing to bet most shots were close range.

The blackpowder weapons of the 18th and 19th centuries were pretty accurate, but nothing compared to todays modern firearms. The military can take a kid off the street with no prior experience shooting a rifle and within 2 weeks he can be shooting in the expert class. I remember in Basic Training, young men that had never touched a rifle had qualified expert by the time they left Basic Training.

Here is some other info about the buffalo slaughters. https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/bison-skulls-pile-used-fertilizer-1870.